Hot Pursuit
by Jan Lee
Summary: [NOVELLA]. Ino finds herself on the hunt with Kiba and Akamaru for jailbird Karin. Only by working together can they track the fugitive and not be killed in the process. At least, that's what Ino hopes. Ino-centric. Ino/Kiba, if you squint. Alludes to Suigetsu/Karin. April/May Story #2
1. After 'em

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto.

**Rating: T**, but will probably end up **M**.

**A/N:** This was originally supposed to be a collaboration story with another author who wanted to do a Suigetsu/Karin &amp; Ino/Kiba pairing fic, but he dropped the ball after I had already written a few chapters. I'm not completely finished with the story, but I know the direction I'm taking with it. Again, I'll try and not leave it unfinished. Please, enjoy.

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**HOT PURSUIT**

**Chapter One: After 'em**

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Wailing sirens woke up Ino from a fitful sleep; groggily, bleary-eyed, she tracked the search lights' intense beams as they blinked from her window, and then her door burst open as Dad barreled into her room. In the half-light, she saw his pale face and sensed his distress.

"Sweetpea, get dressed. We've got an emergency," he said.

That was all. He slammed shut the door as he exited, and she listened to his quick, heavy footfalls as he returned to his own room. What. The. Hell. And she'd been in the middle of a killer dream, too. Sighing, she dressed and tied up her combat boots. After fixing her hair, she slipped on her flak-jacket. Then she checked her pouch and strapped on her kunai holster.

Downstairs, she yawned in her hand. "What's going…hey!"

Dad grabbed her arm and hauled her behind him; she winced from the sharp yank. She had no other choice but to move her leaden feet, but she did twist from his painful grip. "Dad! What's happening?"

"There's time to explain on the way," he said as they jogged through the front door. Dad didn't even stop to lock the door before bounding towards the roof-line. She trailed Dad to the rooftops, using the lip of a trellis and a veranda to get there, and raced after him, her heartbeat stirring from the feel of tension in the nighttime air.

Dad spoke over his shoulder at her. "Sasuke's cohort, Karin No Name, has been contained in a high-security area of the prison since her capture."

Ino knew about the mission into Iron country that had taken two combined teams, plus Hatake Kakashi and Sakura's mysterious new commander, Yamato, away from Konoha. They'd returned with a prisoner, who'd been in contact with Sasuke.

As they sprinted, he continued, "She's been broken out of prison. The guards were killed…some drowned by who we think is another associate of Sasuke's, a Hidden Mist shinobi by the name of Hozuki Suigetsu."

He paused to negotiate a rather difficult section of town, where the roofs were higher and lower and different distances from each other. She continued to follow as quickly as she dared, but she stumbled once or twice, banging her knee on hardened, dark tile. The sirens continued their shrill wailing; lights flashed to and fro over the cityscape of the village. Was this a dream? she thought. Am I still sleeping? It was very science-fiction.

"We assume Hozuki has taken Karin and they will attempt a rendezvous with Sasuke." Dad chuckled darkly. "Our only problem is that we don't know where that rendezvous will take place and what will happen afterwards."

"This is a search and recover mission," Ino concluded.

"Yes. Lady Hokage has expressed that we attempt to bring back Karin. Karin has withheld valuable knowledge about not only Sasuke's whereabouts and plans, but also details pertaining to Kabuto. Konoha needs her information."

"Dad, why didn't we, you know, suck the information from her mind? We're capable of it."

"That was the next stage of things. We just ran out of time, sweetpea," he answered. "We're gathering at the Hokage Tower for team assignments and objectives. And Ino," a meaningful glance in her direction, "if you're teamed with Kiba and Akamaru, don't let personal feelings sour the mission."

"_What_?" There had never been a time that she and Inuzuka had gotten along.

"Remember what you thought of Shikamaru and Chouji the first time you met them? Time will even out his roughness," Dad said, referring to Kiba. "We've got to hurry. Each second we waste is a second longer the fugitive has to escape."

Together, without further talking, but with exceptional fuming on her part, Ino and her father arrived at the tower. Lady Hokage was on a raised platform, frowning and looking for the world like she was ready to kill someone, and Shikamaru's father, Nara Shikaku, stood with her. A few of the other clans she recognized were there, but the majority of them were her cousins and of the Inuzuka clan.

"FALL IN LINE, SOLDIERS!" Lady Hokage's shout boomed out over the sirens. Everyone responded to her tone, forming up two ranks that extended crosswise along the roof. The hustle fell eerily silent, and Ino's heart leapt to her throat. "We've got a fugitive on the run with extensive and valued information regarding Uchiha Sasuke and Yakushi Kabuto. We want her alive and if not, use the Yamanaka clan techniques to forcibly take the information. Each of you will be paired in teams of one Inuzuka and animal companion and one Yamanaka."

Shikaku continued where Lady Hokage left off. "It is believed that another shinobi has helped her, but if he was acting alone or with a group is unknown. We have dossiers available for each team. I will call the names of the members for each team. You will come forth to the first point," he gestured to a table manned by four shinobi, "to get your dossier. You will then continue to Point Two," another gesture to a second table like the first, "and receive your objectives, where to begin your search, and a pack of necessary items that may aid you. We do not know how long this search will last, only that there can be one result: the fugitive's capture. I will begin reading the names of the pairings."

As the names were read, the sirens cut off, and the sudden silence left ringing in Ino's ears. Shikaku's bass voice echoed off the angles of the Hokage Tower, and as he quickly read, she had a premonition of this mission taking her from Konoha and of her having to deal with Inuzuka Kiba.

Lo and behold, when Shikaku read off, "Yamanaka Ino, Inuzuka Kiba, and his partner, Akamaru!" she felt the hot wash of annoyance.

Gritting her teeth, Ino stepped forward to Point One and turned to wait for Kiba to move his ass. She watched as he walked, fluidly, with definite animal grace, sorta hurrying, yet _not_, and the bear that was Akamaru beside him. One, Kiba wore a flak-jacket that molded to his broadened shoulders, and two, she hated that stupid smirk on his face. Annoyed that he sauntered up, she crossed her arms, and when he came to a halt in front of her, she huffed.

"Let's getting going, Inuzuka," she said. "We don't have all night."

"Sure thing, cupcake."

Irritating her right off the bat? Check that. Her first instinct was to slap him or punch him in the gut, but she resisted and whipped around to the table. Already another team approached. She accepted the dossier and strode to the next point where she again accepted a pack, plus a few more documents in the form of a scroll, sidestepping to an out-of-the-way corner to organize everything.

She bristled when Kiba took the scroll from her- -casually slipped it from her hands- -and opened it. His eyes studied it for a moment, and then he said, "Our designated point is half a klick west of the prison. Looks like our friend put up a few false trails. You gonna handle the pack, or should I?"

"I'll handle it," she replied. "We need to study these dossiers. Otherwise, we might walk into an ambush we could've avoided."

"Do we have a comm unit?"

Ino fished around in the pack, and did, indeed, find comms. She handed one to Kiba, and then put on and adjusted the neck strap comfortably. Kiba put the scroll into an open pocket in his flak-jacket, and Ino tucked away the dossiers. Together, they exited the Hokage Tower to their destination on the western point of the prison.

Several teams had beaten them there, but Kiba bypassed them and stopped at a deserted spot alongside the building, which was looking…watery. Deep puddles expanded out around the yard, muddy tracks crisscrossed where there was sidewalk. Ino did her best to sidestep the mess as she'd bought these shoes a week ago and didn't want them disgusting so soon.

Kiba put his forefinger and middle finger together in a concentration sign in front of his nose. His eyes closed, then he said, "I can pick up Karin's scent inside the building and there's this other scent over everything else. It's, like, in the water. Or the water itself, maybe."

Ino glanced at him. "You know what she smells like?"

"I was on the mission to track Sasuke and _she _was with him." He rolled his eyes. "Duh."

"Shut up and navigate," she answered, having forgotten that tidbit of information.

"They're not within my range," he added after a moment, "but I can pick up a distant, fresher scent that's within our search radius."

"If they're already out of your scent-range, they have a significant lead. They must be hauling ass," she added as a note to herself. "Can't you pick up scents within a mile or so diameter?"

He puffed up a bit. "A mile'n'a half."

"Fine, whatever. We have to pinpoint this fresher scent and follow it to where it leads, if it leads anywhere. You or Akamaru take point. I'll bring up the back."

Kiba nodded. "Keep up, cupcake. I don't go slow."

She was sure he never did, as she launched herself after them onto the surrounding rooftops. It ended up being Akamaru, Kiba, and then her at the rear. And they traveled _fast._ Keeping up was her sole focus, and thankfully the aching in her muscles eased out with the continuous movement, and furthermore, the searchlights had never been turned off, so she was able to see where she was going as they raced through deep shadows and darkness.

Akamaru took them through a small section of Konoha, an area that was waterfront, to a medium-sized canal that pushed water underground for the village. There, Akamaru and Kiba hopped to a standstill on the sloshing water. Ino landed next to them, wetting her toes and heels. She waited as patiently as she could as Kiba and Akamaru sniffed around. Their noses wiggled in tandem and they swayed their heads from side to side.

After a while, she huffed and crossed her arms. "Well? What's the verdict?"

Kiba and Akamaru glanced at each other. Communication transpired between human and beast, but Ino could not guess at its immediate meaning. Akamaru growled and ruffed. Kiba nodded his head in agreement.

"We think that Karin was transported into the canal with the use of jutsu," Kiba said, standing straight and facing her. "The canal feeds into the sewer system underneath Konoha. This water faintly smells like the water everywhere at the prison with traces of Karin's scent mixed in."

Would it be possible for Karin and her associate, Hozuki Suigetsu, to travel through water? Ino reached into her pack and withdrew the dossiers, opening tohis profile. She scanned his information, which confirmed her suspicions.

"If it was Hozuki who assisted in her escape, he could have used his jutsu to travel through water to a point beyond Konoha's barrier. We should follow this canal to its source."

"We agree," Kiba replied after sharing a moment's glance with his dog. "Let's move."

Ino replaced the dossiers and raced after when Kiba and Akamaru dashed helter-skelter from the water to another set of rooftops to trace the canal as it wound through a pocket of Konoha's civilization. Barely, she was able to keep pace with their mad sprint. They came to and mounted Konoha's great walls and dove as a set of quick, deadly shadows into the surrounding forest and greenery to traverse through Fire country after the fugitive.

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**A/N: **Thanks for reading. I'll post the next chapter soon. Let me know any questions or concerns you have. =)


	2. Contact

**A/N: **More awesome Kiba/Ino action. The thrill of the chase is on. Will our heroes yada yada yada.

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**Chapter Two: Contact**

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Several hours later, she realized that Kiba's back was much, much closer and _not moving,_ and before she could put on the brakes, she slammed nose-first into the middle of his shoulders.

"_Oof!_" she grunted and drew away to rub her sore nose. "What the-?"

"Shut up, cupcake." Kiba putt his large hand over her mouth, muffling her complaints and obscenities. "They're up ahead," he said. He turned to the side to glance at her. He dropped his hand. "They're not moving. What's yer call?"

"Suppress your chakra…Karin's a sensor." Ino clapped together her hands to initiate the jutsu. Her chakra diminished. Kiba did the same. She continued, "We can get the drop on them if we continue on foot. Are they close?"

"About a klick, maybe a little more. They probably stopped to rest." He squinted upwards to the leafy bowers of the trees above them; she followed his gaze, but she did not see the sky through the covering canopy. "It's gettin' light. Dawn's nearly here."

She did not question him. Ino knew enough about Kiba to know that he seemed to have an animal's intelligence…_instinct_ would be a more accurate word. He could always notch his chin and nose into the air, and on a bright, sunny day with no clouds, state that it was going to rain later in the afternoon. And every time, he'd be right. "If we want the advantage of shadows, we should hurry. Are you able to track them?"

Kiba shook his head. "I'm not able to do it over distances without it, but Akamaru can track and relay the information to us."

"Good. Turn on your comm." She fingered the button on the side of her throat. "Let's find a vantage point and decide what we should do about capturing Karin once we see where they've stopped."

He agreed, and after switching on his comm unit, they pressed forward into the dense growth of forest, traveling along the side of the narrow canal. The smell of dank waterbed and wet vegetation was pungent even to Ino, and she watched her footing carefully as the ground was soggy and slippery with mud. Akamaru trooped on, his nose to the ground and air alternately, and Kiba would indicate with hand signals if she needed to slow up or stop to wait. At one point, Kiba held up his fist- -_Stop!_\- -and she saw him put his nose into the air.

"Do you smell that?" he asked. "Smoke. That direction." He gestured to the side.

Ino glanced where he indicated and noticed the ground elevated up further to a rock-formation that jutted out of the forest, breaking the canopy of the trees. She pointed. "Let's get up there and see if we can spot them."

"Roger," he told her. "Akamaru?"

Akamaru went forward on point again, and together, she and Kiba followed. The climb was difficult mainly because there were places that the 'hill' suddenly became sheer, and their footholds were shaky with silt constantly shifting under them. As they climbed, Ino slipped, losing her grip, and she winced in anticipation of falling. When she didn't, only felt a firm, warm grip envelop her wrist, Ino peeked through her eyelashes to discover Kiba had caught her. He curtailed her rising gratitude with a smirk and a sexist quip that earned him an icy glare from her instead.

Soon after, they crested the hill. Bluish smoke curled up from the green forest to the north of their position. The extra pack had come with binoculars, so Ino pulled them out and focused them to the distance. She found their fugitive with Hozuki Suigetsu…and it looked like…Karin wasn't…wearing any clothes?

"Is she _naked_?" Kiba said. Ino looked over at him and saw that he squinted and shaded his eyes with the blade of his hand. "She's a goddamn fugitive and she's _naked_? She retarded or something?"

He could apparently see long distances, but Ino scanned the area for strategic advantage points. "Hmm. She must've wanted to dry off and made him stop so she could. We can use this. If we move in now, they'll be off their guard and we'll be able to neutralize Suigetsu and capture Karin."

"Me'n'Akamaru can take care of Suigetsu," Kiba said. "You deal with Miz Nudity down there. Hey," he suddenly said, and Ino felt the leer that crawled across his face, "does 'er carpet match the curtains?"

"You're an ass, Inuzuka. She's wearing _underwear_. And I don't think you ought to take on Suigetsu head-to-head. He's a pretty mean fighter," she said. "According to his dossier- -get your hands off!"

He'd tugged her ponytail, not hard, but enough that it rubbed raw. Kiba snorted, his feral eyes unusually bright. "Ye of little faith. You let the men handle the men and you can get into a slap-fight with Sweet-tits and try to lose yer clothes while yer at it, hunh?"

"_Inuzuka_! I will _kill_ you if you're-"

"Try to keep up," he interrupted and he hopped into a slide down the nearly-sheer face of the hill. Akamaru woofed and jumped down after him.

That _jerk._ Ino ground her teeth together. She secured the binoculars in her pack before sliding along the loose rock and silt. The three of them sent a miniature avalanche of dirt and rock cascading to the solid ground of the forest, and she had to flat-out run to keep pace with Kiba and his mutt. They were so going to get killed, she thought, if they didn't slow down and think out their strategy a bit. Suigetsu could turn to liquid at will, and he had the capacity to transform others into water as well. If Kiba wasn't careful, he and Akamaru could dive into a trap that they wouldn't be able to survive.

She watched Kiba weave through tree trunks up ahead, nearly out of sight as he blended well with the branches and undergrowth, so she touched the button to her comm. "Kiba. I"ll circle around. You distract Suigetsu while I subdue Karin. I'll signal you to disengage and will rendezvous back at our vantage point."

"Roger that." Then his back disappeared. Akamaru was no longer visible either.

Ino continued, but slowed to a careful creep forward so as not to give away her position. All this required considerable skill since her chakra was suppressed. She'd released it once she was near enough to Karin that she'd be unable to avoid the Mind-Body Switch. Once she was inside Karin's head, she'd force Karin to put on the special chakra-suppression manacles in the pack. After that, Ino would switch back and take Karin to the rendezvous.

Between the trees, she saw the clearing, Karin's bright red hair an obvious blot of color against the green tapestry of forest. Ino watched her footing, moved when a breeze rustled the leaves and grass, and kept well camouflaged by keeping low to the ground. Insects hummed around her ears as she settled in and waited for Kiba's distraction. Sweat beaded along her upper lip, dripped down her back to collect in the waistband of her skirt. Heat and humidity were rising with the advent of day.

"I'm in position," she radioed to Kiba. She kept her voice barely audible, but knew Kiba's hearing picked it up. "I'm performing Mind-Body Switch when we sign off."

"Copy that. We're in position too. Ready on yer go."

Ino signed off, formed the signs, and charged her chakra into the technique. Her vision clouded, darkened, as her spirit soared like an arrow into nothingness. Time, when she was astral, meant nothing. Her clan's technique took a matter of three seconds to complete, but during that three seconds, a lifetime's river flowed over and around her, submersing her in the complexity of the universe. There was no breathing here, no heartbeat, and when she heard the pulse of a heart and the swell of air in her chest, Ino knew she met her mark.

Vision was the last to clarify, and she opened her eyes to see Suigetsu sitting across from her picking his teeth with a bone of some type. Large violet eyes glanced in her direction.

He sneered. "Take a picture. It'll last longer."

When Suigetsu's attention turned, for just that miniscule of a moment, Kiba and Akamaru drove an attack into the quiet camp, twin spinning drills that were deadly and fast. Ino, inside Karin's body, dove to the side, softening her fall with her forearms and rolling out of battle range. Heart pounding, she gained her feet and crashed through the undergrowth, thorns and branches whipping her bare thighs with stinging accuracy. There was a crash and rush of water behind her, the howling of churning air, and some woman's intuition told Ino that her time inside Karin's body was short.

Quickly, she knelt and formed a combination of successive signs for a technique to reach into Karin's mind. As though a large closet had been opened full of many colorful clothes, Karin's mind opened up a closet full of memories, shimmering mirrors reflecting events of still-life in reverse chronological order, starting most recently with her escape from the prison.

Ino selected one that seemed a few weeks old, one of Dad in an interrogation room, and entered the memory. She felt as though she did not have time to play the entire memory, so she used another technique to tug the memory into her own mind to replay at her leisure. She selected this one because if Karin was telling the truth or lying, the time in the interrogation room would exemplify her knowledge…or ignorance.

From behind her, there came an awful yelping, as though an animal in pain. Ino could not differentiate if it was actually animal…or if it was human. Either way, she realized, Kiba and Akamaru were in trouble. She decided to return to the camp wearing Karin's body, as Suigetsu probably would not attack her flat-out, and she could gather as much information as she could about their destination. But even before she turned around, a cold hand clamped on her arm and spun her.

Those large violet eyes greeted her. "We gotta move our asses," Suigetsu said. "Stop pissing around and put your clothes on."

She noticed a very large sword hefted over his shoulder and to her horror, she recognized blood splattered on the broad blade of it. "What…happened?"

"Don't be a stupid bitch. We were attacked."

His attitude bugged her, but she suppressed her irritation as his clammy hand clamped around her upper-arm and guided her back towards the camp. "Yeah, I know. Where're we going next?"

"You really are stupid," he said, pushing her forward. "I've told you already where we're headed. And I'm fine, thanks for asking. Say, did I tell you about that one time Sasuke watched over you while you were sleeping?"

Oh, shit, thought Ino, as her brain processed the fact that his comment was a test. Ino hadn't had time to officially scan through Karin's brain to further understand her personality, but before Ino even had a chance to answer, a fist like a sledgehammer nailed the back of her head. Stars and darkness overwhelmed her. She didn't even feel herself release the technique.

When, at last, she awoke, it was with a throbbing headache. Ino blinked back tears from the brightness of the sun. The headache dissipated under a concentrated dose of chakra to alleviate the pain. Quietly, she pulled herself to standing and attempted to radio Kiba. Nothing but static on his end. Moving stealthily, she began closing in on his last known location, continuing to try their radio frequency.

Where the hell _were _they? Panic closed in on her, tightening her throat, when she found a furrow in the rich green of the earth. She followed it. Speckles of red dotted plants and foliage along the furrow, and after a minute or two, she came to the end of it. Kiba and Akamaru were crumpled in a heap at the base of a very large, very solid tree.

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**A/N:** As always, let me know thoughts &amp; concerns. Love to hear from you all as I know you're enjoying. =)


	3. Back in Action

**A/N: **Sorry for the long delay, guys. I'm working on some larger projects, plus work is killing me! Hopefully you'll enjoy this new edition.

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**Chapter Three: Back in Action**

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"Dammit, you guys," she said, disentangling them and straightening them out side by side on the ground. "I _told _you to be careful."

Each was unconscious. Kiba looked like he'd taken the majority of the beating, with a deep laceration across his chest that bled freely, and his red clan marks livid on the pale relief of his cheeks. The wound wasn't serious enough to worry her, but she did take care to use her medical jutsu to heal it up. There didn't seem to be any internal injuries, though both of them were going to be bruised and a little sore. She couldn't waste the chakra on every nick and bruise, so after she healed Kiba, she used a small vial of ammonia to revive them from unconsciousness.

Kiba's eyes fluttered as he came back to reality. "Wakey, wakey," Ino said as she patted his cheek. "Now's not the time for napping."

"Unh," he replied. And then something weird happened. He put his hand on hers and captured it against his cheek. "I feel like a train wreck."

Startled, Ino fumbled for a response when his touch sizzled up her arm. "Look like one, for sure."

"Thanks, cupcake." He released her hand, and when he tried to sit up, he couldn't, so Ino helped him out and propped him against the tree trunk. She shifted backwards to get some space as Akamaru nuzzled his head into Kiba's chest. "You healed me?"

Ino sat back to wipe sweat from her brow. "Course I did. You were bleeding all over the place. Duh."

The thoughtful look fit his features strangely, the red triangles flat and unmoving on his cheeks, his wild eyes intense on her. A moment transpired between them, where it seemed like Kiba was contemplating her, or changing his mind about something, but Ino couldn't put her finger on what exactly his emotional state was. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and broke eye contact when the pause nerved her up.

"I had Karin with Mind-Body Switch, but lost it when Suigetsu hit me. They couldn't have gotten far. Why don't we catch our breath for a moment?" She needed the time to examine the memory she sieved from Karin's mind, anyway. "We need to decide what to do next."

"Did you pick anything up inside Karin's mind when you were in there?"

Ino glanced back at him. How'd he know? Or maybe it was a good guess. "Yeah. Give me a minute to look at it and then we can discuss."

He nodded as he scratched behind Akamaru's ears and rested his own head against the tree behind him, closing his eyes and sighing. Ino spared him a lingering gaze, understanding that the fight with Suigetsu had forced out a lot of bluster and hot air. Perhaps that had been for the best. Now that Kiba and Akamaru knew who they were dealing with, she hoped they'd be more inclined to listen to her strategy. It might be that _they'd_ have to subdue Karin and she'd have to neutralize Suigetsu using her mind techniques. But was Karin worth the trouble?

Swiftly she dipped into her own memory banks to the pilfered memory and replayed it. She didn't focus on the details of the memory, but on the emotions and thought process behind Karin's responses to her father's questions. There definitely seemed to be an aura of panic, of unknowing, and Karin's mind during the memory scrambled to satisfy the interrogator while seemingly leaving out key elements. Ino's conclusion was swift and sure; Karin had played at knowing more than she did. Her knowledge of Orochimaru and Kabuto was limited. She'd been a jailer at one of Orochimaru's installations, but as far as plans and whereabouts are concerned, she was as ignorant as Leaf was.

Ino came forward from her internal musings. "Kiba," she said, calling his attention to her. His eyes opened and shifted to her face. "Karin doesn't have any additional information on Orochimaru or Kabuto. Or Sasuke for that matter except for whatever Suigetsu told her, and I didn't have the chance to scan for that information."

He winced. "Shit. That means she was faking it to stall for time."

"Yeah." They sat in contemplative silence for a moment. "Think we should continue the mission?"

"Hell, yeah, we should continue the mission." His hand passed over the bloodied, torn shirt and flak jacket where he'd been wounded by a vicious blade. "I owe that shithead Suigetsu some payback."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "_That's _not a good enough reason."

"We oughta let the higher-ups decide if she's worthwhile or not. Our objectives are clear." He patted Akamaru's head. The dog shuffled a few steps back and Kiba pushed himself to standing. Then he reached a hand down to her. "We can still end this. You in?"

Well, when he put it like that… "I've got your back," she said and accepted Kiba's help in standing. Once again, his touch charged her nerves up her arm. "Can you find their scent?"

His glare was withering. "I'll pretend you didn't ask that. This way," he continued, nodding with his chin.

As a team, they leapt into the treetops and thick branches of the green forest, and Ino followed behind Kiba and Akamaru as they dove headlong through foliage. After a while, Kiba slowed and stopped, and this time, Ino caught herself in time to drop in at his side.

"What's up?"

He held his hand up for silence. She remained quiet as he scrunched his eyes closed. He breathed in through his mouth a few times, and when that seemed to give him trouble, he put his fingers up in that familiar concentration sign.

"Hm," he grunted. "Both Karin and Suigetsu's scents diverge at this point. One set goes in that direction," he pointed one way, "and the other goes in this direction," he pointed opposite the first direction. "There's a source point this way."

"What direction is that?"

He tilted his head. "North. Northeast a bit."

"One's a false trail," Ino concluded. It was a logical step for two people running from the law. She reached into their pack and found the map she'd seen earlier. Unfolding it, she held one side of it and was pleased when Kiba took the other side to stretch the map open all the way so that they could consult it together. "Okay, so we're here, I think." She put her finger on their approximate location. "How far away do you smell the source of the northeast scent trail?"

Kiba concentrated briefly. "I'm guessin' about half-a-klick."

Ino used the first knuckle of her finger to measure the distance. "There doesn't seem to be any viable escape in that direction. See, it's more forest. Why would they run further into Fire country? But if you trace in the opposite direction," she drew her finger across the paper, "the trail leads to a river. Wouldn't that make sense? Suigetsu would feel most comfortable around a water source, and look, there's a town downriver where they could resupply and possibly find another escape route out of Fire country."

When he spoke- -"How can we be sure that they took the river without checkin' out the other trail first?"- -his voice was next to her ear. The lowness of it, the gruffness, vibrated a shower of tingles that progressed from her eardrum down her spine, and Ino couldn't understand why his voice was so much sexier than it had been.

"I have a few tricks up my sleeve," she told him. He helped her fold the map, and damn it, when his hands brushed hers, she didn't appreciate her insides turning to goo. "I can pick up chakra trails like you can pick up scent trails. Let me concentrate for a couple seconds and we'll know which way they went for sure."

"Cool," he said, and his smile was lethal and beautiful. "Yer awfully handy."

Seriously, that smile was a secret weapon. Her heart decided to increase pace. She flicked her hair out of her face. "I have many useful techniques."

He startled her when he touched the slim lock that functioned as her bangs. "I'm sure you do," he said. The atmosphere went pretty crazy then, intense and prickling, and Ino knocked his hand away because he put her on edge, and it wasn't an edge of irritation but one of…attraction. All she could think was how she wanted to ease into a kiss with him, and how completely inappropriate that would be at this dire time.

"Shut up, Inuzuka, and give me some space here. I can't freaking concentrate with you panting in my ear," she snapped. Attraction to Inuzuka _wasn't _in her job description and she certainly didn't want to leave the insulated box that was her mocking, scathing relationship with him.

To her relief, he slid backwards and put up his hands as if to say, 'Okay, okay. You win.' Ino ignored the stirred emotions and calmed herself with breathing. After a few seconds, she meted out her chakra into the technique that allowed her to sense residual chakra trails. Ah, she'd been right. There wasn't any apparent chakra in the northeast trail, but plenty to follow going southwest.

"Towards the river," she said at last.

He nodded, and they fell into their strategic formation. As they hustled without conversation, focused on closing the gap of time and distance, morning became early afternoon, which became late afternoon, and at last they arrived at the river. The river was a wide, muddy thing with a few feet of narrow sandbank along the sides, and Ino's nose crinkled in repugnancy with the heavy fish-odor of the river.

"Whew," she said, waving a hand in front of her nose. "It stinks."

Kiba said nothing. She turned to him and saw his features were clouded with aggravation. Something was wrong.

"What is it?"

"They had a fucking boat ready," he spat. She followed his gaze to a pair of footprints that led to the water's edge, and between them, a shallow, wide groove that indicated they'd dragged a boat into the water. "They've gotten a huge lead on us by now. Dammit. We were so fucking _close_!"

Ino touched his shoulder. "We know where they're headed. We should rest and eat and try to cover the distance tonight. We'll be pushing it, but we can't afford to miss this opportunity."

Though still fuming, Kiba nodded his agreement.

Together, as a team, they stood at the lapping river, eyes set on the lowered sun that sparkled across the dark, deceptively slow-moving water. Ino knew that tomorrow might bring them within range once more of their prey, and if she and Kiba and Akamaru were lucky, Karin and Suigetsu would assume that they were in the clear. That would be their final mistake.

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**A/N:** Thanks again for reading. Let me know what you think. Next chapter TBA. =)


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